Brandon (Anderson Billionaires #3) - Melody Anne Page 0,39

confetti gun, making the children laugh and glittering her floor with an even bigger mess. She made a note to herself not to allow confetti guns ever again. Then she looked at the joy on the kids’ faces, and she amended that. It’d be worth it if these memories stayed with them long into their lives.

The doorbell chimed again, and this time Chloe didn’t look up, but she didn’t need to. Brandon had walked in. She couldn’t hear him, couldn’t smell him, couldn’t see him—she just knew without a doubt that he was there. And the joy that thought brought scared her to death.

Because she wanted to look so desperately, she purposely finished putting food on the Johnsons’ table before wishing them a merry Christmas and then turning to make her way to the back of the place, where she could hide.

She didn’t make it far.

“Impressive crowd,” Brandon whispered in her ear, his breath making her already-overheated body go into the hot flash of a lifetime.

“It’s like this every year. I’m going to be busy for hours,” she told him. “If you’re hungry, your best bet is to try to squeeze in at the front counter and hope to get someone’s attention.”

She said this all without turning. She was afraid the sight of him was going to be too much for her to take. Would she do something foolish like launch herself into his arms and kiss him right there in front of half the town?

“I bet you have a place in the back where it’s a little more quiet, and I can get serviced properly,” he told her in an erotic whisper that had her wanting to melt right there at his dang feet.

Chloe spun around to tell him he couldn’t speak to her that way in her place of business, but her words were lost at the sight of him in a red sweater and tight jeans. The man was too good looking to be unleashed on the public like this.

Judging by the gleam in his eyes, she could tell he knew exactly what she was thinking, and she had the urge to kick him in one of his perfectly shaped shins just to show him he didn’t affect her like he did. This tendency to want to resort to elementary school antics was enough to make her head spin even more.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her before bending down and lightly kissing her cheek.

Chloe couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like there was a hush in the restaurant. She was too embarrassed to look up and find out if everyone’s eyes were on her. Never before had a man kissed her there, and for Brandon to do so was an open invitation for the town to gossip.

“I guess our break’s off the table,” Brooke said as she gave Chloe a wink. “But that kiss just answered half the questions I had for you, anyway.”

“Brooke,” Brandon said before wrapping his arm around Chloe in a possessive hold she couldn’t shake off.

“Brandon,” her best friend said back. There was a suspicious light in Brooke’s eyes, but Chloe was surprised to see respect there, too. Was Brooke turning to the dark side and accepting Brandon as hers? That wasn’t good. Chloe needed Brooke to hate him so her friend could slap Chloe back into reality, even if he was Brooke’s brother-in-law.

But before she could voice any of this, Brandon was pulling her away from the crowd, and Chloe found herself going through the back of the restaurant and straight into the small office she spent too much time in. The door was shut, and then she was alone with Brandon, something she’d promised herself the night before last she wouldn’t do again.

“I need a real kiss,” he told her.

He backed up to her desk and pulled her into his arms, not giving her any more warning than that before his head descended and he was kissing her breath and her senses away. It was several moments before he released her, and Chloe found her head spinning. She wanted to lean back into him so they could continue what he’d started.

“I’ve decided I can make you a very happy woman,” he said as he sifted his fingers through her hair and smiled in a way that made her want to believe him.

“We can’t do this, Brandon,” she told him. But man did she really want to do just that. She wanted to fall into this make-believe world he was pulling her into,